Thursday, January 12, 2012

Since it's my Friday and I'm a bum and like to be lazy and slowllllyyyy reintroduce myself back into schoolwork, I took the night to do some Netflix browsing. I remember hearing about "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead," probably from another blogger.

This was my first time watching a food documentary. After my mom watched "Food, Inc.," she begged me to watch it numerous times and I always turned her down. After putting some thought into why I was so adamant about NOT watching it, I think it's because ignorance is bliss. In the back of my mind, I knew I was going to receive a lot of information that would require me to either make some serious changes, or have tons of knowledge that many of the things that I was putting into my body weren't beneficial. Anyway, after watching "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead," I think I have no choice but to watch Food, Inc. because I absolutely loved this documentary.

Short synopsis: a 40-something, overweight Australian man decides to do a 60 day juice fast in order to see if this will help his body heal itself from a autoimmune skin disease that he had been suffering from. He comes to America for the duration of the fast. Toward the end of his fast (which is wildly successful; at the end of it he is off all his medications and down a considerable amount of weight), he meets another man in Arizona who has the same autoimmune disease that he does, and he is also morbidly obese at over 400 pounds. At the time they meet, the narrator (Joe), only interviews (Phil). However, once Joe had returned to Australia, he got a call from Phil saying that he was ready to change his life and try the juice fast. Phil also completes a 60 day juice fast, quits his job as a truck driver, starts working at the YMCA, and inspires his family and entire community to consider juicing.

First of all, this documentary was extremely motivating, and just all around amazing. Seeing these guys transform their lives, for HEALTH reasons, and not VANITY reasons, makes it all the more inspiring. As a 24 year old female in constant fear of bikini season, this documentary provided a nice reality check. Being healthy and making healthy decisions has long term effects. Being unhealthy also has long term effects.

This documentary forced me to evaluate my own diet. Prior to seeing this, I would probably say that I ate pretty healthfully. However, I don't eat veggies at every meal (although I try) and I am nowhere near a "plant-based diet." I think I might experiment with a small or low-end juicer and just try having one small juice a day. At this point, I don't have the energy to go through with a 10 day juice fast (which is usually okay for "healthy" people), because I can't afford to be exhausted and sluggish while I'm in school. However, over a break or in the summer I may consider it. For now, I think juicing is the perfect solution for getting in a huge amount of nutrients fairly easily. This one small change that I can make to my diet NOW, will have countless nutritional benefits, and I think it's a great habit to begin for anyone trying to improve their health. Everything in the film is really common sense--the vast majority of Americans don't get nearly enough fruits and vegetables. Juicing is a simple way to fix that.

Final thoughts: Watch the documentary! It's on instant play on Netflix and is really captivating. You won't regret it!

Monday, January 9, 2012

Hi!!! I just got back to D.C. after spending the Holiday Break back home in Ann Arbor and Vail, Colorado. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Getting back to school means getting back into a routine. Part of that routine including going back to the gym today. I always tell myself before long breaks that I will at least try to stick to working out. Well...I only entered a gym twice in a month, but I'm counting snowboarding as working out! Shockingly, when I got on the scale, I saw that I had lost 4 pounds. The shift in weight goes against everything I've learned on my "healthy living" journey. I ate whatever I want (including alcohol) and didn't work out. Maybe I lost muscle. I just don't know. But I sort of feel like maybe I need to be more relaxed about my gym regime and perhaps take more rest days? It's highly possible that I have previously been overtraining and/or not fueling properly for workouts. Anyway, I just thought that was weird!

Another part of my routine is going grocery shopping, which is where I spent parts of yesterday and today. I love going to the grocery store, it's a problem. While I was at Whole Foods, I was SO excited to find pomegranate seeds!I love these, and I especially love that I don't have to go through the pain of extracting them from the actual fruit. I enjoyed these babies atop some Fage 0% yogurt, with some Love Grown sweet cranberry pecan granola for an afternoon snack. It was perfection!